History

Sep 29, 2023

Eva Zeisel, Designer Extraordinaire
Lecture by daughter Jean Richards, New York

2023-10-25T13:56:11-04:00September 29th, 2023|, , |Comments Off on Eva Zeisel, Designer Extraordinaire
Lecture by daughter Jean Richards, New York

Eva Zeisel (born Éva Amália Striker, Budapest 1906 –2011 New City, New York) was one of the most important designers of the 20th century. She believed that beautiful things make people happy. Although she was known for her ceramic tableware, she also designed in glass, wood, plastic and metal. Her designs are in major museums around the world, including the Metropolitan Museum, the British Museum and MoMA, where she had the first one woman show in 1946. Lecture by Eva’s daughter Jean Richards. Image above: Eva Zeisel, Red Wing Pottery pieces from "Town and Country" collection. Glazed earthenware, ca. 1945. CC BY 4.0 Photograph of a young Eva Zeisel. © Eva [...]

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Sep 1, 2023

Art for the Millions:
American Culture and Politics in the 1930s
Lecture by Allison Rudnick, New York

2023-09-27T14:24:53-04:00September 1st, 2023|, , |Comments Off on Art for the Millions:
American Culture and Politics in the 1930s
Lecture by Allison Rudnick, New York

The 1930s was a decade of political and social upheaval in the United States, and the art and visual culture of the time reflected the unsettled environment. Americans searched for their cultural identity during the Great Depression, a period marked by divisive politics, threats to democracy, and intensified social activism, including a powerful labor movement. The exhibition with the same title, on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art New York until December 10, 2023, features more than 100 works from the collection and several lenders, and explores how artists expressed political messages and ideologies through a range of media, from paintings, sculptures, prints, and photographs to film, dance, decorative arts, fashion, and ephemera. Highlights include paintings by Georgia [...]

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Aug 31, 2023

From Émigré to Englishman: Fred Uhlman, ‘Painter of Dreams’
Lecture by Dr. Nicola Baird, London

2023-09-13T13:30:35-04:00August 31st, 2023|, , |Comments Off on From Émigré to Englishman: Fred Uhlman, ‘Painter of Dreams’
Lecture by Dr. Nicola Baird, London

Manfred [Fred] Uhlman was born on 19th January 1901 in Stuttgart, Germany, the eldest child of Ludwig Uhlman (1869–c.1943), a textile merchant, and his wife, Johanna Grombacher (1879–c.1943), both of whom were later to perish at Theresienstadt concentration camp. He studied law at the Universities of Freiburg, Munich, and Tübingen, graduating with a doctorate in 1923. In 1927 he joined the Social Democrat Party, becoming its official legal representative in 1932. Image above: Fred Uhlman, Still Life with African Figures, oil on canvas, Hatton Gallery, © the artist's estate / Bridgeman Images. Photo credit: Hatton Gallery In March 1933, after a warning that his arrest was imminent because of his political affiliations, he fled [...]

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Aug 23, 2023

Samson Schames: Fragments of Exile
Lecture by Annika Friedman, Frankfurt

2023-12-15T11:28:36-05:00August 23rd, 2023|, , |Comments Off on Samson Schames: Fragments of Exile
Lecture by Annika Friedman, Frankfurt

This event is sponsored by Ilona Oltuski in memory of Ruth Drory. Image above: Samson Schames, Kindling of the Lights, c. 1956. Glass tiles on glass, 56 x 71 cm. Jewish Museum Frankfurt Samson Schames (1898-1967) came from a long-established Jewish family in Frankfurt am Main. With the support of his uncle, renowned gallery owner Ludwig Schames, he made his way into the 1920s art scene and began his training as a painter, graphic artist, and stage designer. Schames’ designs, drawings, and oil paintings from the period up to 1933 testify to his deep connection to Frankfurt and her landscapes. Samson Schames, Opernplatz Frankfurt, 1930. Jewish Museum Frankfurt [...]

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Nov 18, 2020

“Fritz Ascher: Themes and Variations”
A Digital Exhibition Experience

2024-03-05T08:12:14-05:00November 18th, 2020||Comments Off on “Fritz Ascher: Themes and Variations”
A Digital Exhibition Experience

This digital exhibition includes important examples from the oeuvre of the German Jewish Expressionist artist Fritz Ascher (1893-1970). Ascher’s career extended from prior to the First World War until the late 1960s. However, Ascher’s artistic trajectory was interrupted due to persecution under National Socialism, and he spent much of the Second World War in hiding, concealed in a family friend’s basement. Ascher’s work consequently encompasses both the vibrant artistic scene in early-20th-century Germany, as well as the trauma and aesthetic shifts consequent of Ascher’s persecution and deprivations during the twelve years of the Nazi regime. These selected works are representative not only of critical moments in Ascher’s personal and artistic development, but also of key themes that occupied Ascher’s [...]

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Jul 9, 2020

Zoe Strimpel, British Historian
Rhodes Must Stand: a lightly Jewish perspective on
why we must learn to live with the past, not destroy it

2020-07-15T17:24:03-04:00July 9th, 2020|, |Comments Off on Zoe Strimpel, British Historian
Rhodes Must Stand: a lightly Jewish perspective on
why we must learn to live with the past, not destroy it

Lecture featuring Zoe Strimpel, British Historian and flagship columnist for the Sunday Telegraph Moderated by Rachel Stern, Director of the Fritz Ascher Society in New York Since the Black Lives Matter movement gained new urgency following the police murder of George Floyd, much material - not just statues and monuments to the past but culture more broadly – has been flagged as racist and therefore undeserving of a continued place in the public sphere. Recently, Dickens has attracted the condemnation of anti-racists. But nobody has ever, or is likely to, pore over the anti-Semitic connotations or history of art or industry. Jews have learned to live with the prominence of Wagner; of authors from Trollope to Kingsley Amis, with statues to [...]

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